Hi there! A few of you may have seen me in the New Members area. I just bought a 1995 Riviera a month ago to replace my 1988 Bonneville SSE (shame to see it go - someone bought it and fixed it though). I got the car for a bargain because no one wanted to fix the rust underneath the car. Needed a few structural repairs and new brake lines as well as the usual tune-up schtuff. I honestly have seen it only twice since I bought it as it's been at my cousin's getting repaired. It'll be done by the end of the week and on the road by the end of next week! I hope..

It has all options but the chrome wheels and towing package (as far as I know). Has a decent dent in the driver's door and needs roof and trunk paint, but I'll be taking care of the paint as soon as I get it. Needs some interior repair - seats and mirrors do not work right now. I may just take it to the Buick dealer down the road if I can't figure it out. Also, some panels need painting - such as the cupholder door and ashtray door. They're all scratched and chipped from lord-knows-what. Other than that the interior is perfect. The wheels are immaculate and the engine is almost spotless. I'm very happy with it, especially the 110,000 miles on the clock. I plan to strip the paint off the wheels and polish them to a mirror finish and remove the 1/4 panel RIVIERA emblems. I think it'll be neat making the car even more mysterious in its origins than it already is. There's a long list of little things I'd like to do to it, and you can be sure I'll be updating as soon as I take care of them! But for now, pictures!


















Hope you enjoy my 'restoration'! Thanks for looking!

-Andrew Z

VERY niceee! thats the samecolor i have.
the 95's dont have OEM chrome options from my knowledge. i just bought 7 spoke chromes a couple weeks ago.
i also dont think there was a towing package.

what the hell was put where the cigarette lighter and ashtray cover was? lol

your dash looks in good shape!.

Do you know how your cousin is going about fixing the dent?

Thanks guys!

I'm not having him fix the dent right away. I don't have the money for it at the moment. I needed to get it mechanically up-to-snuff first. I imagine they'd go from the inside and knock it out as much as possible. However, I've heard of him cutting out big dents like that and welding new things in if it's bad enough. That's how he did a rocker panel on my dad's '87 Regal Limited. It was dented too badly so he put a new one on it. Who knows - that'll come soon enough. Like I may or may not have mentioned, it needs paint on the roof and trunk and rust on the A-pillars so I can take care of that. Once that's done, the only body work it'll need will be that dent so he won't have much work to do.

I hope we can meet up in a few weeks Scott! For some reason these cars are very scarce in my area and have only ever seen one other one - faded bl ack- in person and I couldn't stop to look at it. Also, yours is the first I've seen that's the same color as mine - itll be cool to get pictures together!

yea well get together..definitely. ill be home the 19th-21st. im waiting to hear back from a job this week..if i get it..ill start august.. so i should have some free time. also i need to take a day to work on my car, install calipers and fixing the exhaust leak.
if u havent seen ur riv clean and in the sun...its a much better color.
are u planning any mods?

theres a few rivs in pgh...i dont think ive seen one in as good as condition as mine..(mine has 62k) u should check out my grill...i had 3 dif grills so far..the stock one. i had different varitation of the popular grill done on here(my profile pic, i have pics of it on my comp if u want to see)..and the one i have now. its cheap and looks great!

it will be cool too get some pics together! btw..all the rims in good condition? center caps?

Yeah I really can't wait to get moving on it and get all the little things on my list done. I'm not planning any huge modifications besides an intake. I KNOW those help. I just have to find a place where people actually MAKE major modifications for the Series 1 - like cams and crazy things like that. Other than that, I don't plan modifications for now - just cosmetic things. I'm sure I'll be happy with the power it has for a while anyway.

I have seen your grille, Scott. Very clever way to do it too and it looks AWESOME. But yeah we'll get together - PM me whenever you know what's going on for sure!

beautiful color for the riv. i bet she would look evan nicer with a black interior....

yea good luck finding a series one shop. let me know if u find sumthing. id possibly be interested in having them do some work.
the stock power is ok. the SC really makes u feeel a lot better.

ill PM u when i get home. in about 2 weeks! time is flying

I should be getting the car back Monday or Tuesday. Can't wait to get working on it!

yyeaaaaaaaaaaaaaa......buuddddyyyyy

Yep I just have to get through some registration and inspection formalities first. I should have it Thursday at the latest. Then It's time to figure out what's keeping my power seats from getting power.

On a side note, I noticed my traction control system doesn't work. The warning 'off' light is on. Anyway, It seemed to be ok before the brakes were worked on and I know the traction system has a lot to do with the front brakes...could something be disconnected?

Mwahahaha - got the car back today, and it's road legal now! Yay!

Anywho, I got a jump on my long list of things I wanted to do to it, and it's coming along nicely. Some of you may have seen my post on how the car felt sluggish, well i think I fixed that by cleaning some things and opening up the intake a little. Still lots to do! Pictures to come tomorrow hopefully!

Beautiful interior! The dealer won't be able to take care of your power seats, you'll have to rip the modules from another Riv and do-it-yourself pretty much.

Hope you get the exterior cleaned up!

Awesome! Good find! On the ashtray lid on your interior, that's where I have my Sirius unit mounted, where you have that sticky stuff residue. Congrats!

IBx1 - Yeah I read up on the BCU symptom and was ready to buy one when I discovered the breaker was my problem. Now I just have a find a new breaker because my local parts stores don't have them. I guess I'll be going to the dealer anyway . The exterior basically needs polished where it doesn't need paint, and I'll be slowly but surely working on that whenever I can. I plan to paint the roof and trunk this weekend though!

Deekster - Yeah I guess someone did something similar on my ashtray lid like you're doing right now. Unfortunately, that's not residue. It's missing paint. Luckily, I have some dye/paint that should match well enough for me to not miss the giant black spots on it.

I cleaned up the interior last night - vaccuumed and put my NOS mats down. I just need to shampoo (or something) the trunk carpet because it's dirty from who-knows-what. That'll be today's major project. Pictures later!